for a new magazine, and Dr. Maginn and others were able and anxious to supply the want.

There was a briefless barrister in London, about this time, who floated, as it were, between literature and fashion-fluctuating, in his intellectual life, from Grub street to the Ring in Hyde Park. This gentleman, with more ambition than ability, more money than brains, was Mr. Hugh Fraser. He was on intimate terms with Dr. Maginn, who confided to him the desire he entertained for establishing a magazine in London, to be conducted in a fearless and spirited manner, as a counterpoise or rival to Blackwood. Like Maginn, he had a large circle of available literary acquaintance. Unlike him, he had money at his command. The result of their joint resolve was, to sound their friends, with a view to the ascertaining how many of them would become contributors, and to what extent. With some degree of forethought, they actually prepared as many articles as would fill an ordinary number of Blackwood, and, on the last day of 1829, sallied forth, arm-in-arm, in search of a publisher.

In Paternoster Row, Ave-Maria Lane, Stationers'-Hall Court, Ivy Lane, and such familiar localities, wherein publishers most do congregate, they met with no encouragement. Dr. Maginn was well known, in "the Row," by reputation, if not by person, but could not persuade any city bibliopole to take up his project. He and his friend, reluctantly abandoning their cherished idea, turned steps westward, determined to console themselves for the disappointment by a good dinner at Verey's, in Regent street. Before they could reach that restaurant, the name of FRASER, over a bookseller's shop (215 Regent street) caught Maginn's eye. Exclaiming," Fraser! here's a namesake of yours- let us try him," the Doctor paused. They entered, and encountered Mr. Fraser- at that time, about thirty years of age. On mentioning their project to him, it appeared that he had himself a desire to be publisher of such a periodical. A native of the north of Scotland, he had been educated, I have been told, for the Church, but, though he was a sound and rather serious Christian, he never completed his clerical studies. He was well read in general literature, was a shrewd man of business, and, in politics, about as ultra a Tory as Maginn himself. The conversation casually commenced in Fraser's shop, in the afternoon, was continued in his back-parlor, after dinner, in the evening, and the result was that, just as the old year was at its last gasp, the trio drank, with full hopes aud brimming bumpers, Success to Fraser's Magazine for Town and Country"- for that

*Grub street ceased to exist, by that name, some twenty years ago, and is now called Milton street.

name their literary bantling there and then received. The public naturally believed that the Magazine was called after the publisher. On the contrary, it bore the name of Mr. Hugh Fraser, one of the projectors. In the publisher's books, during the eleven years he issued it, the account ran in the name of "The Town and Country”— and this, too, long after circumstances had induced, or rather compelled him, to become the proprietor, by subsequent purchase.

With little preliminary announcement, the first number of Fraser's Magazine appeared in February, 1830. It excited no small sensation, its personal hits and dashing audacity out-Blackwooding Blackwood. The prefatory article, "Our Confession of Faith," by Maginn, was spirited and bold in the avowal and exposition of Tory principles. Maginn's, also, was a slashing article on Mr. Robert Montgomery's poetry. His fine Italian hand" is perceptible in other articles. There, too, was a Spanish Ballad by Lockhart; a translation from the German, by Heraud; a dissertation on Mechanics' Institutes, by Captain Basil Hall; a Canadian tale, by Galt; a Highland legend, by Picken, author of " The Dominie's Legacy;" a review, by Gleig, of Cyril Thornton's "Annals of the Peninsular Campaigns," and a long notice, rather respectably written, by Hugh Fraser, of Jean Paul Richter's review of Madame de Stael's " Allemagne." The first Number was a success. In the second (which opened with a paper, by Maginn, on Moore's Life of Byron), Crofton Croker and Haynes Bayly, appeared as avowed contributors. The third exhibited Robert Southey as having joined the new and vigorous Magazine. A poem, "The Young Dragon," was his contribution. Barry Cornwall also appeared, modestly figuring under the initials “J. B.”—subsequently extended to J. Bethel." There, also, figured The Ettrick Shepherd, from that time a constant contributor. Not to be too particular in this recapitulation, let it suffice to state that, in addition to those already named, among the avowed writers in the first six numbers of the first volume of REGINA (as the Magazine was called), were Allan Cunningham, John Kenyon, L. E. L., " The Harrovian,” D. M. Moir ("Delta" of Blackwood), William Jerdan, S. T. Coleridge, and Miss M. J. Jewsbury, besides many more who contributed anonymously.

Long before the completion of the first volume, Fraser's Magazine was what may be called "a paying property." Maginn was himself the principal contributor-taking all subjects in turn, and equally at home in each. As much editing as the Magazine required was supplied by him, although every contributor may be said to have had pretty much his own way; two things being as fixed and unchange

E

able as the laws of the Medes and Persians-first, that the ultra-Tory politics of the work were to be consistently maintained by every one, and secondly, that the principal part of the "slashing" reviewing was to be executed by Maginn himself, whom long practice and a natural bent for satire had united to make a master in the art. I suspect that Peter Mac Grawler, of the Assinæum, in Bulwer's "Paul Clifford," although avowedly a caricature of a well-known book-reviewer and censor-general in a literary weekly paper of the time, may also have been written with some idea of Maginn's “slashing" notices of literary people and their productions.

An attempt (also by Maginn) to rival the celebrated "Noctes" of Blackwood, was the account of the Election of Editor for Fraser's Magazine," with which my present volume opens (pp. 1-90). It was highly thought of, at the time, and Maginn made several subsequent attempts in the same vein (some of them very elaborate), but the "Noctes" are not to be equalled, and the efforts to eclipse them, however good, did not succeed. Maginn's were more dramatic, in many instances, than Wilson's but they lacked the breadth which characterized the real "Noctes." They were far too personal, also, and deficient in repose. The specimen I have given will enable the reader to form his own opinion as to their merit, actual as well as comparative.

The great hit of Fraser, which continued attractive for several years, was the "Gallery of Illustrious Literary Characters," commencing in Number V. (for June, 1830), with a full-length of Mr. Jerdan, editor of the Literary Gazette, and ending, some seven years after, with a sketch of the Rev. Sydney Smith, of "Peter Plymley" and Pennsylvanian Bonds' renown. These portraits, in which there is very little caricature, were all drawn by Daniel Maclise, now R. A., and one of the first historical painters of England, but then, a recent importation from Cork to London, with the world all before him, and a hard battle, for food and fame, to fight against a brilliant array of the established and rising talent of the greatest city in Europe. In that life-struggle, Maclise found a warm ally, friend, and counsellor, in Maginn, at whose solicitation the portrait-illustrations of Fraser were commenced. It was long before Maclise was known to have executed them, and, even yet, they are sometimes attributed to another hand. The sketches were inscribed with the fictitious name of "Alfred Croquis," and Mr. Forester, of the London Stock Exchange, having since appeared, as author and artist, under the sobriquet of " Alfred Crowquill," has been confounded, naturally enough, with the artist of Fraser. Every one of these portraits was drawn by Maclise. An article,

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by Maginn, in January, 1840, called "Preface to our Second Decade," alluded to what may be called this artistship; humorously maintaining that though the name of Alfred Croquis never appears in the catalogues of the Exhibition, the name of a friend of his, or at least of one who ought to be so, is to be found there pretty often; and we believe that his pictures are not to be sneezed at, even by the most Gothic of barbarians. He is rising every year to higher honor and renown, and displaying fresh proofs of unwearied genius; and though the pictures which he exhibits are of greater splendor, and loftier aspiration, yet, in their own way, we maintain that the sketches of Croquis display as much talent as any production of the best R. A., or A. R. A., of the lot—ay, even if you named Maclise himself." In the enlarged edition of "The Men of the Time," it is distinctly stated that Maclise drew the sketches in question for Fraser's Magazine, "to which he was also a poetical contributor."

The "Fraserian Gallery" consisted of eighty-one plates-seventy representing male, and eight female authors. Three plates represented groups of The Fraserians, The Antiquaries, and REGINA'S Maids of Honor. On the whole, the entire series, which cannot be collected now without destroying the first seventeen volumes of the Magazine, consisted of One Hundred and Two portraits of the principal male and female writers of the time. Washington Irving was the only American among them. The Continental celebrities were Beranger, Count D'Orsay, Goethe, Talleyrand, Telesforo y Treuba, and M. Ude, the French cook. About one half of the persons, thus pictorially treated, may be reckoned as having contributed, at one time or another, to the Magazine. By far the greater number of the portraits were wholly out of the range of caricature, and may take rank as authentic and very

characteristic likenesses.

The letter-press which accompanied each plate was nearly all written by Maginn. Three exceptions we are certain of-the remarks on Maginn's portrait, written by Lockhart, those on the sketch of Goethe, by Carlyle, and James Hogg's account of Sir David Brewster. With two exceptions, also, the prose illustration of each single portrait was condensed into a single page. Mr. Kenealy says, “As a whole, they are, we think, the most original and sparkling of the Doctor's productions; and when we remember that they were hit off at a moment's notice, we shall be easily able to fancy how meteoric was the intellect from which they emanated. Wit was their principal recommendation. * * * And we never read them, without involuntarily thinking we hear the Doctor speak, for they are perfect resemblances of what his conversation was."

These pen-and-ink sketches would fill a volume, if accompanied by such annotations, relative to the respective personality of each subject, as are necessary for the full understanding of what Maginn dashed off in a sportive or a satirical mood. As I do not include the series in the present collection-for the point would be greatly sacrificed by the separation of the comments from the sketches, and there are many obstacles to the faithful reproduction of the latter—I shall make no apology for here presenting one of the Doctor's pages, as a sample. It is a sketch of one who lately departed— the Nestor of English authors. Satirical enough it is, in all conscience, and it was placed opposite a most death-in-life portrait-painfully resembling the cynical original.

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SAMUEL ROGERS, ESQ., AUTHOR OF THE PLEASURES OF MEMORY.' "De mortuis nil nisi bonum! There is Sam Rogers, a mortal likeness painted to the very death!

"We have often thought that a collection of the witticisms let off on the subject of Sam Rogers's death would go near equalling in bulk the past volume of jokes put into his mouth by a thousaud industrious pun-manufacturers. There is Mackintosh's wonder, why, when at an election time he could not find an accommodation at any hotel in a country town, he did not try snug lying in the churchyard — the French valet's announcement of him as M. le Mort, mistaking him for Tom Moore, and the consequent horror of the company-Scott's recommendation that Sam should try his fate in medicine; where, if there was any truth in physiognomy, he would be sure to shine, on the strength of his having perpetually a facies Hippocratica — Hook's friendly caution, when he saw him at Lord Byron's funeral, to keep out of sight of the undertaker, lest he should claim him as one of his old customers - but why extend the roll, when there is not a variety of jest in which 'Goodman death, Goodman bones, thou atomy thou,' or any other of the complimentary phrases bandied about by Hostess Quickly and Doll Tearsheet, against their inveterate enemy the beadle, could be twisted, which has not been brought into action against Rogers? He stands all this fire undisturbed, strenuously maintaining not only that he is alive, but that his countenance is the very beau-idéal of beauty. That's a very pretty girl,' said he, one night to Newton the painter; she has a téte morte. I have a tête morte-it is really one of the finest styles of the human countenance.' Whereupon Sam' grinned horribly a ghastly smile,' just as he is doing in the opposite picture.

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'Independently of the persecution Sam suffers from being dead, a grievance which he has in a great measure outlived, he is an ill-used gentleman, in being made punmaster-general to the United Kingdom. How this high distinction originally came to be his, we have no historical documents to prove. It is now settled. Joe Miller vails his bonnet to Sam Rogers. In all the newspapers, not only of the kingdom, but of its dependencies, Hindostan, Canada, the West Indies, the Cape, from the Tropics, nay, from the